Pos/world/ War II American conservatism is usually linked with the late and great Sen. Robert A. Taft of Ohio, Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona or President Reagan, the movement’s earliest national political heroes. But each man of that august trio gave intellectual and political deference during their lifetimes to the de facto co-founders of modern American conservatism, William F. Buckley Jr. and William A. Rusher,founder/editor and publisher, respectively, of National Review magazine.
It is no exaggeration to say of Buckley and Rusher that most of the mighty vessels of American conservatism, which ultimately sailed the public-policy oceans blue were products of their inspiration and influence.
Countless young people, most of us in our pre-teens and early 20s were quietly mentored by the duo, a tag team unrivaled in intellectual dynamism, rhetorical command, personal generosity and, perhaps most importantly, patience.
We would take the subway from Queens, Bronx or Brooklyn, usually on Saturdays between school and jobs, to be met at National Review’s office on East 35th Street and then to lunch at Peoni’s. None of us were accustomed to restaurants, and we never knew what things cost because Rusher always picked up the tab.
Besides serving as National Review’s publisher and mentor to many young conservatives, Rusher was also a tough-as-nails prosecutorial attorney who never suffered fools gladly. That came as no surprise to those who knew that he had earned his captain’s bars as a U.S. Army military intelligence officer following his graduation from Princeton.
When courted by the Republican and Conservative parties to run for a high office in New York City in 1966, the politically active though innately private Rusher responded, saying “I do not have the requisite personality deficiencies to run for public office.”
Stylistically different but equally devastating as Buckley behind a speaker’s podium or in front of a television camera, Rusher regularly subjected a lengthy list of the most prominent figures of American liberalism to his own form of military interrogation on the fine PBS production, “The Advocates.”
Michael Dukakis, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Theodore Sorenson, and Noam Chomsky
were among the many avatars of American liberalism who earned their notches in humiliation while being intellectually skewered by Rusher.
Rusher was the unflappable man. When fears of an unprompted Soviet nuclear attack grew to become the 1960s flavor of the month, he was asked by liberal television interviewer David Susskind whether he would choose to spend his hypothetical final hour in a bomb shelter or in a church.
“Neither,” responded Rusher. “I would swim against the current of the mobs on Fifth Avenue and repair myself to the Palm Room of the Plaza Hotel where I would generously tip the waiter to henceforth bring before me and uncork all remaining champagne bottles embossed with the name Rothschild, with which I would from my leather upholstered chair face westward and toast the remaining moments of civilization.”
Bill Rusher lives forever.
Ron Docksai Sr. former national chairman of the Young Americans for Freedom, has labored long years in the conservative public policy vineyards, including on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.
